Thank you to Gary Blair for his insightful listing of the top ten New Year Resolutions.We  have added links to Orange County Business Listings to help you in your quest to achieve your goals.

New Year’s is the only holiday that celebrates the passage of time. Perhaps that’s why, as the final seconds of the year tick away, we become introspective. Inevitably, that introspection turns to thoughts of self-improvement and the annual ritual of making resolutions, which offer the first of many important tools for remaking ourselves.

The following list is the result of our extensive survey, which consisted of over 300,000 responses worldwide.

1. Lose Weight and Get in Better Physical Shape

Physical activity builds physical vitality. With every year of your life, you have more to gain from being physically active; as your age-related risks of chronic disease increase, regular exercise generally slows or reverses that trend.

In fact, you’re even more likely to notice the benefits of regular exercise if you already have a chronic condition.

Are you ever going to be fit again as long as you live? The answer is unless you make a resolution to get fit – you’re never going to be fit – ever. The choice is yours; it begins by opting for the stairs instead of the elevator, fruit in place of chocolate, and active rather than sedentary activities.

2. Stick to a Budget

It’s been said that the best defense is a good offense. Developing and sticking to a realistic budget is a brilliant offensive move as it prevents overspending and ensures peace of mind.

Many people find it very difficult to stick to a budget. It does take hard work and a lot of self-discipline, at least in the beginning. The good news is that most people find the longer they can stick to a budget, the easier it becomes.

3. Debt Reduction

One of the first things you have to do before any debt can be eliminated is to stop using charge accounts. If you continue to use the accounts, you are only fueling the problem, and building on it, not solving it.

Make a resolution now to stop charging anything and to get financially stable. If you can’t pay cash for it, you don’t need it, make it just that simple and you will find yourself out of debt in no time at all.

Keep a diary of all money spent, whether it is by cash, check, credit card, etc. Once you know where your money is going, then, and only then, can you take the steps needed to prepare a good budget that you can live with and make huge strides to budgeting your debt away.

4. Enjoy More Quality Time with Family & Friends

More and more people are resolving to spend more quality time with family and friends this year. This means you must consciously decide to actively and purposely work on improving your family situation every day.

You may need to do such things as reschedule business activities to make time for your kids, help your children set and achieve worthwhile goals, and setting aside an hour a day for the family, every day.

Starting right now, you can begin to make choices and take day-to-day actions that will create nothing short of a phenomenal family. You can choose to have one if you just resolve to do it and know where to put your focus. Making our families stronger and healthier is important to our communities, our state and our world.

5. Find My Soul Mate

Romance is alive and well as more and more people are looking for that special someone, their soul mate who lights their fire, the ONE whom they love unequivocally and who shares their worldview.

Soul mate relationships are the sort of romantic relationships most of us dreamt of when we were young and innocent: loving and erotic, committed and inspiring and best of all – lasting.

Soul mate relationships give both partners the fulfillment that deeply satisfies them and makes them feel that they have found the most wonderful person in the whole universe.

6. Quit Smoking

Becoming a non-smoker is probably one of the best decisions you can ever make, and is a life changing as well as a life saving decision.

The benefits to your health, relationships, finances, vitality, the environment and to your sense of self-esteem for having conquered a really hard-to-kick habit will make any and all of your efforts and determination more than worth while. The resolution to become a non-smoker will also help you to live longer and enjoy the finer things in life.

Once you’ve made the resolution to stop, acted upon it and succeeded, you’ll feel great about what you have achieved. Resolving to give up is your decision, and will improve your life from that moment on. No one can make you quit, and no one can help you make the resolution. You have to do it yourself, you have to want to do it, and you need to do it now!

7. Find a Better Job

A new year provides a sense of getting a free do-over, so you can try again and get it right. Many people resolve to find better jobs or to take a new approach to the jobs they’ve already got.

It’s corny, but true — most of us get reflective at this time of year and if we are in jobs already, we begin thinking: Am I on the right path? Do I like where my position and my company are headed? Am I even in the right career?

So you’ve been hearing that voice again, the one that says you’re not doing what you were born to do. That may be true, but how do you figure out what you should be doing?

To begin answering this question, examine whether your current career path matches your core interests, beliefs, values, needs and skills. Resolve to ask and answer those essential questions before making any new career changes.

8. Learn Something New

People throughout the world are realizing that a strong resolve to lifelong learning is more than just education and training beyond formal schooling. A lifelong learning framework encompasses learning throughout the life cycle, from cradle to grave and in different learning environments, formal, non-formal and informal.

Perhaps you are considering a career change, want to learn a new language or musical instrument, or just how to become a better cook? Whether you take a course or read a book, you’ll find education to be one of the easiest, most motivating and beneficial resolutions to keep. Challenge your mind in the coming year, break out of currents routines and challenge every comfort zone and watch your horizons expand.

9. Volunteer and Help Others

A popular, non-selfish New Year’s resolution, volunteerism can take many forms such as spending time helping out at your local library, mentoring a child, or building a house to name a few.

Volunteering has risen sharply in the years since we began collecting resolutions. This suggests the possible emergence of a new civic generation and a resolve to make a bigger and better difference with your life.

Resolve to replace the pursuit of success and materialism with the pursuit of contribution and generosity. For this to occur, the critical question must move from, “How can I become successful?” to, “What can I contribute that will significantly impact other people’s lives?” By focusing on what we can contribute, we automatically become successful.

10. Get Organized

Resolve this year to plan your days, reduce interruptions, clean off your desk, say “No”, and make detailed lists. The benefits of getting more organized include being able to save time, as you no longer look for the same things over and over again or need to replace things you can’t find at all.

You will reduce stress because when you know where everything is, there’s no last-minute rush to find what you need and get out the door on time for school, soccer practice, or that important business meeting.

You will also find yourself being much more productive, as all the time you once spent looking for things can now be used to do more important or more enjoyable tasks.

Most people define being organized as quickly and easily able to find what you need. While this is certainly true, organization is so much more. The ability to staying organized lets you focus on accomplishing your most important goals. That’s the true benefit of being organized.

Reprint Policy: You can freely reprint this material with the following reference source:

Gary Ryan Blair is the inspiration behind New Year’s Resolution Week. This annual event was founded on the premise, that a single resolution can positively and profoundly create lasting change in your life and help to make the world a better place. To become part of the world’s largest personal change initiative, visit www.GoalsGuy.com.

Seriously, it’s time to fill the gas tank again?  Prices are on the rise and there’s not much we can do about it.  Right?  Well, the answer to that is both no and yes.  No, we can’t do much to lower the price of gas, but yes, we can take steps to reduce the number of times we visit the cost consuming gas station.

Here are a few helpful hints to reduce the frequency of the Needle on Empty Syndrome:

1.  Take care of your car!  Besides the issue with gas prices, a car is a huge investment.  Checking the tire pressure and replacing the air filter on a regular basis will do wonders for improving your car’s efficiency and therefore it’s MPG.

2. Remember that when the traffic light turns green, it’s not a green light to jump on the accelerator – settle down Speed Racer.  Accelerate moderately so as not to waste fuel.  A perfect partner to this hint is to take a tip from the truck drivers on crowded freeways.  They keep their speed constant as they know it takes much more fuel to get a vehicle moving than it does to keep it moving.

3. Try roughing it and turn off your air conditioner.  At lower speeds, you will save fuel.  But on the flip side, at higher speeds the A/C will be more efficient than the open windows because of wind resistance.

4. Resist the urge to “pimp your ride”.  If your tires are wider than the stock tires, chances are they’ll create more rolling resistance and decrease fuel economy

5. So many of us fall into the category of being cleanliness impaired when it comes to our cars.  It takes little to acquire an extra 40-50 lbs. of stuff in our trunks.  Extra weight equals more fuel to burn to get from point A to point B.

6. One last tip for the carpool parent: Avoid Long Idles – The bottom line is idling burns more gas than restarting an engine. If you wait in line at your kids’ schools, you know what a long idle means!

Now that you know how to stretch your tank of gas, stretch your gas dollars by learning where the cheapest gas stations are in your area

Are you feeling discouraged in your OC job search?  And while it is certainly understandable that discouragement might replace optimism as the emotion of the day, it’s not time to give up the search.

Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz thinks it could take half a decade or more just to get to the employment levels we had two years ago. Still, he expects that during this new decade, the U.S. economy will eventually create 15 million new jobs, with the unemployment rate falling to around 5 percent.  But what is interesting is in what fields the jobs will be located. 

Katz says the U.S. has experienced polarization of the labor market. It results in strong job growth for the high-paying jobs and the low-paying jobs at both ends of the labor market, but less growth in the middle to replace the well-paying manufacturing jobs the U.S. is losing.

Dixie Sommers, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recites a list of the 10 occupations that the BLS expects will provide the greatest number of new jobs over the next decade.  These include:

1. Registered Nurses
2. Home Health Aides
3. Customer Service Representatives
4. Food Preparation and Serving Workers
5. Personal and Home Care Aides
6. Retail Salespersons
7. Office Clerks
8. Accounts
9. Nursing Aides, Orderlies, and Attendants
10. Postsecondary Teachers

Orange County Resource Guide wants to help you in your OC job search.  Find help on how to write a resume as well as searching for available jobs by category or Orange County city.  And always remember…

“It’s not what you achieve, it’s what you overcome.  That’s what defines your career.”  ~Carlton Fisk